


The Elephant in the Room

by CydSA



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-21
Updated: 2010-05-21
Packaged: 2017-10-09 15:19:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CydSA/pseuds/CydSA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your music, Kris, what are you trying to tell us, tell me?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Elephant in the Room

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://dansetheblues.livejournal.com/profile)[**dansetheblues**](http://dansetheblues.livejournal.com/) who donated $20 for a fic at the beepx3 comm. Thanks for all the twatting over my night time/early morning dramas. At least I don't feel alone – hugs. Until I started this fic I had not really appreciated the words of Kris' music. Seriously, Kristopher?

**Red Guitar:** _The colour never fades away, no matter where she has it placed, and my life was changed when I saw the face, oh of her red guitar_

Adam hates his life right now. Everyone is always asking him who he's dating and if he has a special someone and is fame preventing him from getting any. He hasn't had any since Drake and that was…fuck. That was forever ago. He's horny and he's hungry and he's angry with everyone. Especially Kris.

They were friends from the word go. Despite the differences, they were inherently the same. Honest, accepting and real. Roommates from the beginning of the top 13 they, along with Allison, had formed the heart of Season 8 of American Idol. Their room was the meeting room, the comfort room, the Truth or Dare room. Everyone had gravitated to them and their bond, even the viewers.

Then Kris won and it was the tour and insanity and in New York, the morning after the GMA performance, giddy with exhaustion, Kris had kissed him. And everything had changed.

Suddenly there was a distance, a reserve and Katy had shown up everywhere, posing and pouting and shiny and Kris had played the perfect, adoring husband to the hilt.

Then Detroit, and Kris had hugged Adam and told him that he loved him, was _in_ love with him and Adam had freaked out. It was his biggest and only regret. He'd panicked and run.

Kris had seemed to accept it, had kept up the public Kradam but privately, he'd withdrawn and kept his distance, no matter what Adam had tried to do to rectify the situation. Apologies were not enough. Adam had tried to tell him that he was sorry and that he was wrong and that he loved Kris with every part of him.

But his Kris, the Kris who had curled up next to him in his bunk on the bus, arms cradling him close and comforting, that Kris had vanished, and been replaced by a walking, talking, breathing mannequin.

Kris and Katy smile and tell everyone how happy they are. Adam can see that the smile never reaches those eyes. He can see the sad man looking out at him and it breaks his heart.

**Lifetime:** _ I wake up, put my poker face on, it's roughly the same hand I was dealt yesterday, I stand up, and stare out at the skyline, it's roughly the same town that I saw yesterday, living doesn't come first try, it takes a lifetime getting it right _

Then Kris releases his album. Adam has memorized the songs. Every lyric. If he was put to Chinese torture and had to sing every song, he'd be able to. Every hitch and breath perfectly. It's a little humiliating really.

It's Kris' story in music. From the first lyric to the last Adam hears about his love for Katy and his confusion as to why things aren't perfect and his questioning himself and what he believes and what he feels.

Adam thinks that perhaps he's reading too much into things but deep down he knows that Kris is talking to the world, talking to him and he wants to answer him back. Only thing is, Kris doesn't call. And he won't answer Adam's calls.

Not that he tries too hard, because really, what is he going to say? "Hey Kris, that song about your poker face, were you thinking about me?" That would go down so very fucking well.

Kris has been learning to play the media better. Adam watches the newest interviews and Kris _has_ worked on that blank face, he's keeping what he's really feeling behind an affable mask. Only if you look really closely, can you see the real man in his eyes. And that man isn't happy at all.

Adam wonders if it has anything at all to do with him. He wants to ask Kris if he still loves him and if he does, then why the fuck is he not talking to him?

**The Truth:** _ It's the elephant in the room, and we pretend that we don't see it, it's an avalanche that looms above our heads, and we don't believe it, trying to be prefect trying not to let you down, honesty is honestly the hardest thing for me right now yeah, while the floors underneath our feet are crumbling, the walls we built together are tumbling, I still stand here holding up the roof, cause it's easier than telling the truth _

Adam decides to do something about it when he hears that Katy is in Arkansas filming the Bloodstone Diaries and Kris is in Los Angeles, gearing up for his tour. The last few interviews with Kris have been painful to watch.

He's seen Kris' mouth move and make all the right noises but he's lying. He's lying about how happy he is and about how good his marriage is and that he's cool with Katy focusing on her acting career while he concentrates on his music. He doesn't like this Kris.

So he gets his people to call Kris' people and set up a lunch. When Helen comes to tell him that Kris is too busy, Adam gets angry.

He calls Kris' PA personally. "You can tell him that if he doesn't make an opening for me in the next two days, I will call in to Ryan's show and start crying on air, saying that Kris hates me and is avoiding my calls." He can't even slam the phone down because it's his i-Phone. And well, he can't. It's frustrating. And makes him angry all over again.

He gets his lunch date an hour later. And spends the following hour flailing around the room, panicking about what he's going to wear. He needs a 'look at what you're missing, you fuckwit' outfit that is going to give Kris the message that he's doing just fine without him.

He isn't though. His life, crazy as it is, every dream come true, isn't satisfying to him. It's empty, there's a Kris-shaped hole in his heart, in his life and only Kris can fill it.

He's been so afraid to love again that he lost Kris before he realized just how _much_ he loved him and now it feels scarily like it's too late. He thinks he might actually be every gay cliché ever written right now.

(a) – in love with best friend – yep  
(b) – in love with straight best friend – that too  
(c) – in love with straight, married best friend – oh god  
(d) – in love with straight, married best friend who is in the closet – check  
(e) – in love with straight, married best friend who is in the closet and refusing to talk to him

Yeah, pretty much every cliché in the book. Adam drops his head in his hands as he sits down on his bed. The lunch tomorrow was the most important date of his life. Forget about Madonna and Gaga and Oprah. This was his life, his future. Kris was his life and maybe it had taken him a while, but once he got there, he stuck.

**Let it Rain:** _So many things are trying to keep me, so many voices trying to reach me, to tell me that this is not the way, to tell me that this is my mistake, oh let the rain keep falling down, cause it won't stop me from getting where I'm bound, maybe I'm crazy maybe it's too late, but I'm gonna make it, don't care what the skies say _

He's running late and by the time he gets to Katsuya he's freaking out because he's sure Kris won't have waited. He barrels into the sushi bar, nearly knocking over a couple on their way out and thinks that he probably looks like a lunatic to anyone watching.

Kris is slouched in a chair at the back of the restaurant and Adam thinks that he looks exhausted and sad. Adam slides into the chair opposite him.

"Hey." It's the usual Kris greeting but with none of the animation he normally displays.

Adam tries to smile. "Hi."

Kris's eyes are shuttered, hiding his emotions. "So, how are you?"

The offhand question makes Adam see red. "What the actual fuck is wrong with you?" He thinks about standing, or leaning over the table and wringing Kris' neck. "You make me threaten you to meet me and now you're all 'hey how are you?' I can't deal with the who you are right now!" He knows his voice is loud and semi-hysterical but this has been building for weeks, months maybe and Kris is not helping.

Kris knows what he does to Adam. And Adam knows that Kris knows what he does. And he lets him do it. Again and again and again.

"I've been dealing with some shit." Kris tells him, offhand like it's really not important and Adam totally knows that it is.

"What shit?" Maybe he sounds suspicious, but this is Kris and he's been fucking with Adam's head and Adam's heart since Top 13.

Kris looks at him, eyes steady. "Me and Katy. We've been working through some stuff."

Adam wants to leap over the table and shake it all out of him. "What shit?" he repeats and if it makes him a dickhead then he can live with the label.

The waiter chooses that moment to come over and take their order and Adam impatiently orders baked crab handroll as a starter and yellowtail sashimi with jalapeno as a main course. He's slightly amazed when Kris announces that he'll have the same.

He's distracted by this new Kris, who eats sushi, but he's not deterred and when the waiter leaves them with a bottle of Ferrari-Carano Fume Blanc, he fixes his gaze on Kris again. "What shit?"

Kris takes a sip of his wine, annoyingly relaxed, while Adam feels like he's about to slide out of his skin. "We are done. Me and Katy. It's over." It's not like Adam hasn't had dreams about this moment. He's never pretended that Kris isn't his type. But it's sad how anti—climatic everything feels.

He asks, "Should I say that I'm sorry?" He doesn't want to be seen as a hypocrite.

Kris shakes his head. "Nah. It's okay. We've been delaying the inevitable for months now."

Adam wants to say something profound. "Your folks?" he asks instead.

Kris shrugs. "They were pissed at me but they want me to be happy and I think the whole world has seen how very not happy I've been."

Adam has missed this. The confessions, the snark, the utter lack of filter that has always been part of who they are. "So why have you been avoiding me then?" He's hurt that Kris has kept him out of this loop, kept such a big thing from him.

Kris tilts his head back and rubs at his eyes tiredly. "I didn't want you involved in all the drama." He rolls his shoulders. "It would have made everything messy and dramatic and tabloid-y."

"That's not even a word." Adam corrects automatically while his brain tries to compute what Kris is saying.

**Bring it Back:** _ What Fate's been telling me, at sundown on the freeway, is no place for goodbyes, don't worry now, seasons will change, forgive my mouth, for not letting you walk away, take your love, bring it back bring it back, think before you leave, I forgot what love is, bring it back, tell me that you believe, I got a different ending, to our story, I know it's hard to you, to hear it through, but listen as I read, take your love, bring it back bring it back, think before you leave _

"It's a Kris word." Kris tells him with a smile.

Adam knows Kris and he won't let himself be distracted. "Why didn't you call me, tell me at least? I would have been your wing man."

Kris shakes his head. "You'd have been the punch line of every talk show host's monologue."

Adam wants to shake Kris. "I don't care."

Kris looks at him, eyes steady and dark and warm and Adam sees a spark of something there that he's a little afraid to name. "I care." Kris says, "I didn't want anyone pointing at you and blaming you for anything."

"You were protecting me?" Adam is trying to get his mind around this.

"I wanted to talk to you." Kris gazes at Adam. "But I knew that as soon as I did, Katy would know and then everything would come out and I…" he trails off, obviously aware that he's said too much.

Adam knows, finally he knows that what he's wanted, hoped for, dreamed of, is almost within his grasp. "I've missed you."

Kris smiles then. "Yeah. I've missed you too. You're kind of pushy though. I didn't want to see you until this was all over."

Adam feels the snarl on his face. "I don't fucking care. I hate that you haven't talked to me and told me about the shit going down. I hate that you've been going through all of this on your own."

Kris shakes his head. "I've always known that you were there, at the other end of the phone, if I needed you. That's what's made it easier to get through. That you're on the other side."

**I Need to Know:** _ Is there clarity, in this insanity yeah, what you want from me yeah, roads in front of me, taking me astray, are you leaving me, or are you leading the way, can you hear what I'm saying, I need to know, I need to know, I need to know, I need to know, feel like I'm trying to breathe underwater, trying to climb but I keep falling farther yeah, will you take my hand, feels so far away, wanna see your face, are you even there, can you show me, can you make me believe, I need to know _

Adam isn't sure what to say. "I'll always be there for you," is what he settles for and Kris smiles.

Their crab handrolls arrive and Adam watches as Kris dives into them enthusiastically. "Since when do you love sushi?"

Kris looks up from his food. "I've learnt to love a lot of things I didn't before. Like sushi. I didn't know how good it was."

And there's a subtext there that Adam isn't quite ready to touch. So he asks, "I wanted to talk to you about your album." Kris pauses in mid-bite. "That's actually why I asked you to meet me."

The expression on Kris' face is half terror, half anticipation. "My album? Why? Don't you like it?"

Adam pulls a face. "Asshole. Of course I love it, your voice is raw and organic and it about broke my heart to listen to you."

Kris ducks his head, a tinge of pink touching his cheeks. "I've had a lot of backlash." He rubs the back of his neck and looks up at Adam from under long eyelashes. "Katy was pissed at some of the lyrics."

Adam snorts and manages to spit half of his crab on the table. He kicks Kris under the table when he starts laughing. "I'd have been pissed too. Some of the words. Seriously Kris? It was like you were telling the world that you weren't in love with her anymore." And that isn't what he'd intended on saying but it had all come out and maybe that was for the best.

Kris wipes his fingers and helps Adam clean up his area. He's still giggling a little as he replies, "It was my way of cushioning the blow?" He says it like a question and Adam kicks his ankle again. Kris yelps and moves his legs away.

"You are such a fucking _guy_." Adam tells him and hides his spilled food in his napkin. "I hope Katy made you sleep on the couch for a month."

Kris grins. "Yeah. She wasn't happy with me." Then he sobers. "I had to start somewhere. And music has always been the way that I best express myself."

Adam pauses, he's not sure if he should ask, but faint heart and all that, so he takes a breath and plunges in. "Who else were those songs for? I mean, you were saying goodbye to Katy but also talking about someone else. Someone new."

Kris stares at him. "Are you seriously asking me that?" He sounds incredulous, like Adam has just asked him about the big bang theory.

Adam nods. "You're going to have to spell it out for me, Kris. And maybe take out a full page ad in the LA Times."

**Before We Come Undone:** _If you say that it's too late, those are words my heart can't take, and this night is out to kill, and if we let it, it will, could we both forgive somehow, cause I'm not letting you down now, my pride is out the door, cause I know we can, make it before, make it before the sun, breaks another day, I'll wait till you say, I'm the only one, before we come, before we come undone_

Kris is silent when the waiter brings their main course. He's silent as he starts eating the sashimi and Adam can feel his muscles start to twitch. Kris eats methodically, chewing carefully and Adam thinks about walking out right then because his ass is hanging out there and Kris is stuffing his fucking face.

"When I started the album, writing songs I mean, we were still on tour." Kris finally speaks and it's like listening to David Attenborough on the mating dance of the tse tse fly he's so animated. Adam lets him talk though. "Everything was so crazy and exhausting and Katy and me weren't talking to each other."

Adam nods. He remembers what it was like and how much strain it put on them all, especially Kris who had never felt like he deserved to be the American Idol.

"Katy knew before I did." Kris tells him.

Adam is almost afraid to ask. "Katy knew what?"

"That our marriage was over." Kris props his chin on his hand. "Women are like psychic or something."

Adam chuckles. "No, baby, they just notice shit about emotions more than us."

Kris sighs. "Yeah, maybe. Anyway, when I told her that I had kissed you, she went a bit crazy."

Adam winces. "I can see why." He's still not proud of how he handled that whole situation.

Kris starts drawing circles on the tablecloth with his index finger. "I told her that I was in love with you." He looks up at Adam again. "It didn't go well."

Adam shakes his head. "Oh God. Why did you do that? Why?" It's the most important answer he will ever get in his life.

Kris watches Adam as he replies, "Because I was tired of living a lie. We all know that my music is the most honest part of me. I told her that I was in love with you long before I actually told her," he shakes his head. "I don't make sense."

Adam sighs. "Of course you do. That's why I asked for you to meet me today."

Kris' mouth quirks in a wry grin. "Blackmailed me, you mean?"

Adam shrugs. "Whatever, it got me what I wanted, namely you across the table." He's not sorry now.

Kris leans back in his chair and asks, "So, I guess the question is, are you prepared to be the other man in this mess?"

Adam is speechless. To have Kris just come out and say that is…he can't think of anything, so he reaches out and takes Kris' hand, links their fingers and holds tight. His reward is that slow smile spreading across Kris' face like a sunrise.

It's an answer without words, but they both hear it.

**Written All Over My Face:** _ Just cause you say it's so, doesn't make it so, singing I don't show, what I'm feeling for you, I'd rather shut my mouth, than to spell it out, there's no doubt, when it's written all over my face, what you want me to say that I don't say, what you want when it's written all over my face, if you want we could talk about it all day, but what's to say, when it's written all over my face _

Adam can't remember paying for lunch. Maybe Kris took care of it but they're back at his house on his sofa and Adam is wrapped up in Kris' arms. It feels like heaven and forever and he's shaking apart inside.

"Stop thinking so hard." Kris tells him, "I can see the smoke from here."

Adam sinks his teeth into the muscle closest to him and Kris yelps. "Shut up." He then presses a kiss there in apology. "I'm trying to think of the best way to deal with this."

He feels Kris shake with laughter. "This? You make it sound like a math equation." Kris sounds cheerful and Adam can't understand why.

"You need to explain something to me." He pulls away and sits up, moves away from Kris who is sprawled on the sofa, legs wide, mouth smiling.

"Shoot." Kris tells him.

Adam finds it hard to look away from Kris when he's like this. "You've been avoiding me for months; I had to force you to meet me for lunch today. What's changed? Why are you being so Zen about this now?"

He sees the dark look on Kris' eyes and it makes him shiver a little.

Kris says, "I realised, once you made our date today, that I would never be able to pretend that we were just friends again. So I decided that if you were okay with it, then I'd be okay with it." He smiles. "I reckon that we've spent enough time apart for you not to be branded with a scarlet letter, but at the same time, I like that I get to be with you again."

Adam reaches out, wraps his fingers around Kris' ankle. It's not exactly where he wants his hands, but anywhere else would be too distracting right now.

"You sort of broke my heart a little," he confesses softly. "Cutting me off like that."

Kris' grin fades. "I'm sorry. I thought it would be better for all of us if I just stayed away from you. I'm not exactly well known for my poker face."

Adam's short burst of laughter surprises them both. "Not so much, no." He leans back and looks at Kris. "Which of your songs were about me?"

Kris stares down at his hands and then back up at Adam, eyes intent and serious. "All of them. Except for Red Guitar. They were all about you and for you and to you."

Adam kisses him then. Soft and sweet and then hard and messy. And then their hands are pressing and stroking and Adam can't breathe properly because it's Kris kissing him back and it's everything he's ever wanted and it's terrifying.

**Can't Stay Away:** _ There's something bout the way you make me feel, I'm ready to confess, they checked my heart and it's terminally ill, baby I'm a mess, I'm done trying to deny, that without you, I'll be alright, you break me down, every time you make a move without a sound _

Kris calls Katy to tell her where he is. Adam tries not to listen to their conversation but he fails because, really, he's totally eavesdropping.

"I'm going to stay here tonight." Kris pauses. "Yeah, probably not my smartest hour, but it feels good to just be with him again. You know?" Another pause then a soft laugh. "Thanks, Katy-girl. I love you too."

Adam inspects his nails and Kris nudges his thigh. "It's okay; you don't have to pretend you didn't hear that."

Adam sighs and drops his head on Kris' shoulder. "Sorry," but he's not, and Kris knows it. "So Katy knows everything?" Adam tries for nonchalance and it just comes out weird.

Kris huffs a laugh. "Yeah, she knows, she accepts it now." His lips press a soft kiss on Adam's forehead. "My parents know too."

Adam sits up so quickly that he gets a head rush and feels dizzy for a moment. "What?" It's suddenly very, very real. "You've told your parents?"

Kris nods. "Of course. They wanted to know what went wrong with Katy and I had to tell them that I was in love with someone else. My mom has been talking to yours a whole lot lately."

Adam makes a mental note to send his mother some dead flowers. Traitor. "And…um…how'd they take it?" He knows how important his family is to Kris.

"They were shocked and confused, but they love me and they love you and once they realised that we hadn't actually done anything about it, they were okay." Kris takes Adam's hand and tugs on the aquamarine ring that never leaves his hand. "Momma wants me to bring you for a weekend when things are sorted with me and Katy."

Adam just stares at Kris. While he's been wallowing and agonizing, this remarkable man has been rearranging his life so that he can be with him.

"You're amazing," he tells Kris and is gifted with a blush and a smile, plus a swift head shake. "I'm serious. You're brave and wonderful and strong and I am so fucking in love with you…"

Kris shuts him up with fierce kisses and hot hands. Adam doesn't mind.

**Alright With Me:** _You can fight but it's not over, I say stop but you start to go I guess that means L-O-V-E, I say to look but you turn away, I say we put our best foot forward, will you believe, come next to me, oh why can't you see, I'm begging you please _

The divorce is amicable; the response to their coming out as a couple less so, but Adam can't be bothered. He arrives at the Grammys with Kris on his arm and life is pretty much perfect.

The calls for photos and interviews trail them as they walk the red carpet, hand in hand, and they stop by the E! station and wave at Ryan. He's tanned and his smile is glowing and Adam reminds himself to ask Ryan for his dentist's name.

"Adam! Kris! Come on over here!" Ryan calls them and they go to him and shake hands while the 'Glam Cam' makes its intrusive way up and down and around them. "So, guys, it's been quite a year, huh?"

Adam grins. "You could say that." Ryan's smile never falters though.

"Who are you wearing, Adam?" Ever the professional, Ryan always asks the right questions.

"I'm in a Cassidy Haley jacket and the rest of me is Prada." Adam informs him.

Ryan raises an eyebrow at Kris who shrugs. "No idea man, Adam just gave this to me and told me to put it on."

Adam is still laughing as they enter the Shrine Auditorium.

Kris has to go and prepare for his performance. Adam is so proud of him and he sits back as he watches his boyfriend on stage, singing a medley of songs from an album that is almost all about him and them and a love that was never going to go away.

Finally, Kris clears his throat and says, "Thanks for letting me share some of my music with you. The last song I am going to sing is one I wrote for my wife, Katy, a long time ago, when we were bright and shiny and new. We're still bright, maybe not so shiny anymore, but she gave me permission to share the song with my new…my new love."

The laughs from the audience are not mocking, they're gentle and understanding and Adam feels his throat closing. Kris looks straight at him and smiles. "Adam, once I started singing 'he' in this song, I realised that this one was about you too. Thanks for loving me, cause you're doing it perfectly."

**Red Guitar:** _ He plays it soft so only I can hear the same old song that he played last year and it may not have all the strings oh but he strums it beautifully_


End file.
